{"id":2674,"date":"2015-05-30T11:08:16","date_gmt":"2015-05-30T11:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/?p=2674"},"modified":"2015-05-30T11:08:16","modified_gmt":"2015-05-30T11:08:16","slug":"commentary-on-the-trinity-sunday-b-31st-may-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/commentary-on-the-trinity-sunday-b-31st-may-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary on the Trinity Sunday (B) 31st May 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s commentary is given by Fr Donagh O\u2019Shea OP (http:\/\/goodnews.ie<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Mt 28:16-20<\/b><\/p>\n

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.\u00a0 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.\u00a0 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.\u00a0 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“Who can understand the Trinity?” wrote St Augustine in the 5th century.\u00a0 “Rare are the persons who, when they speak of it, also know what they speak of\u2026.”\u00a0 Then with all due qualifications and apologies, he suggests a way that might throw a little light on it.\u00a0 Look at yourself, he says; you see that you exist<\/em> and that you have a mind<\/em> and a will<\/em>.\u00a0 These are three dimensions of your reality, and yet you are one.\u00a0 You are a kind of trinity: three in one and one in three.\u00a0 It is just an image, for as he said, “Who can in any way express it plainly?\u00a0 Who can in any way rashly make a pronouncement about it?”\u00a0 It is only an image, yes, but it has this advantage: that it is taken from personal<\/em> life, and not from mathematics.\u00a0 Sometimes people have seen the mystery of the Trinity as a piece of impossible mathematics in which 1 x 3 is still 1.\u00a0 St John, like Augustine, looked in personal life for analogies of the Trinity.\u00a0 He wrote, “Whoever does not love<\/em> does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8).\u00a0 This is a profoundly challenging statement.\u00a0 If I don\u2019t live in love I don\u2019t know God.\u00a0 A little further on John wrote, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1John 4:16).\u00a0 I may be the most learned theologian in the world, I may have hundreds of ideas for the betterment of the Church and society, I may be working like a slave to implement these ideas; but if I am not living in love it is wasted effort.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Let’s extend the personal image a little further, to groups<\/em> of persons trying to live together.\u00a0 There are two things, mainly, that people suffer from in families and communities of every kind.\u00a0 One is a feeling of suffocation, of not being allowed to be themselves, of having no identity except that of the group.\u00a0 The other is opposite but equally painful: a loss of identification (of any but the most basic kind) with the community.\u00a0 Here the individuals circle around one another at a distance, like planets, and this leads to loneliness.\u00a0 These two are opposite poles: too much family and too little, suffocation and loneliness.\u00a0 Now try to think again about the Trinity.\u00a0 The Father is eternally the Father.\u00a0 He never has been and never will be the Son or the Spirit.\u00a0 Likewise the other Persons.\u00a0 Each is eternally a unique Person.\u00a0 There is no suffocation.\u00a0 And yet they are so much one that we have to say there is only one God.\u00a0 The doctrine of the Trinity shows us that the inner life of God is a community\u00a0 –\u00a0 the only perfect community.\u00a0 Such a life we all aspire to, such a life we long for in all our dreams and waking: full presence to others without being diminished or disrespected in any way, a joyful pouring out of our lives for others, such that it makes us fully who we are ourselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Deep down, our longing for such a community is our longing for God.\u00a0 All our struggle to achieve it is our struggle for God, and all the pain and frustration we experience on the way is redeemed and given meaning by that transcendent Community that is God.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s commentary is given by Fr Donagh O\u2019Shea OP (http:\/\/goodnews.ie). Mt 28:16-20 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.\u00a0 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.\u00a0 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2676,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2677,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674\/revisions\/2677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}